Days Happen
Despite our lofty plans and petty concerns, time marches on. Days happen, one right after the other. The present moment unfurls and that quickly becomes history. Last night, I was struck by a reference in a PBS Frontline story to research done in the archives for information from 1977. Was that really that long ago?
I guess so.
Today I am struck anew by the amazing place where I now reside. As the year 2016 nears the twelfth month, we have become ever more normalized with our rolling hills and areas of hardwood forest. We have slowly developed new trails and arranged sections of fenced pasture. It is becoming a reflection of us and the animals now living here.
In the relatively short time we have been here, the neighborhood has changed noticeably. We are currently in the final weekend of the annual deer hunting season, an event that has quieted significantly compared to our first years on the property.
I’m not sure why there is less activity visible this year on the properties adjacent to us, but it’s been nice to have fewer sights and sounds to trigger Delilah into the fits of unnecessary outbursts she feels called to deliver. I wish I could attribute her good behavior to a continued maturation, but evidence hints otherwise.
It’s quite possible that her presence alone is a factor in relocating local hunters to more distant acres, although she isn’t chasing all the deer off. We still see them around with regularity. More likely, what has moved the hunters away is the combined activity of the horses and humans roving around here along with her on a daily basis.
Life is happening here everyday. And as soon as I chronicle it, the stories become archived in the “Previous Somethings.”
Time marches on.
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Picture Story
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Three shots that tell part of the story.
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It deserves to be pointed out that 3 (pi)es were presented for dessert.
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Snow Arrives
The drive home from the day-job yesterday was a fascinating adventure in the full gamut of transitioning to winter precipitation. It was wet at the start, then turned in to a variety of audible ice hitting the windshield before becoming heavy snow. Traffic slowed to a crawl as the visibility dropped and the sides of the road turned white.
The delay only added a half-hour to my commute because no sooner did I clear the delay occurring at the sharp curves where I94 touches I35E near downtown St. Paul, when the precipitation slowed and flakes transitioned back to ice.
Speeds picked up again and before I knew it, snow was no longer visible on the shoulders. As I reached the Wisconsin border, the roads were dry again. Before I made it home, I passed through one more brief barrage of clattering icy precipitation followed by calm.
I stepped in the door to find Cyndie had Thanksgiving preparations well under way. My favorite cereal treats, and a major threat to my control of daily sugar calories, were prominently displayed on the counter. Without hesitation, I grabbed a handful.
Instant reward in the pleasure centers of my brain!
On top of that comfort, there was a warm fire in the fireplace and she had dinner all planned.
I’m spoiled rotten and I admit it.
As the night wore on, the weather I had driven through earlier arrived and began coating the world outside our door in a beautiful blanket of snowflakes.
This is more like it. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.
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Doggin’ It
Racing home to beat the sunset, I arrived in time to drive the Grizzly into the woods with my chainsaw to clear a fallen tree from the trail. Actually, to clear half a tree, as it had fallen from our neighbor’s side of the fence. The top half of it was protruding into the path of our trail.
It wasn’t large, so I made quick work of it and returned to the garage where I changed to the winter wheels on the Griz and mounted the snowplow to get it ready for the next wave of precipitation moving our way.
Then all the off-season tires for both the ATV and Cyndie’s car were stowed away on the high corner shelf, and the garage got rearranged to make room to store all the equipment we probably won’t be needing for the next few months.
By the time I got in from chores, Delilah was overdue for attention and let us know it with an endearing parade of dog toys she pulled out and presented for our review. After chasing her around the house for her rubber yellow monkey, she got distracted by her antler chew.
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I laid down next to her and listened to the sound of her teeth clanking and grinding against the hardness of the branched horn. I was down on her level and we were just chillin’ together.
With all of the things I accomplished after work on a Monday, I deserved to spend a little time dogging it.
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Heavy Handed
I haven’t quite mastered the art of using the loader on our tractor yet, but I’m gaining confidence. What that means is, I am able to make more mistakes quicker.
More than once yesterday I was heavy-handed on the lever and scooped too deep beneath the pile of lime screenings. We worked to spread most of the pile before the weather makes a season-long shift to frozen ground.
It’s the kind of thing that drives this perfectionist to major frustration.
One way I get over it is to move on to the next time-sensitive task that needs to happen. Cyndie and I removed the canvas from the gazebo before the first accumulating snow falls.
From up close, I discovered the gory details related to the subtle lean the structure has taken on that has been visible for a few months.
My first inclination was that the soft wet ground had given in on one side, but now I don’t think that was the case.
It’s possible the horses pushed against one side. It’s also possible that an extreme wind gust applied enough torque to bend the frame. Thinking about it, the second scenario would seem to make more sense, because if it was the horses, I believe they would have pushed it even further. Or they would have pushed it again after the fact and compounded the damage.
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With daylight fading, I left the bent frame to be dealt with next spring and switched my attention to moving the deck furniture to our winter storage location on the back side of the house. It was the last thing I wanted to accomplish for the day.
Just as soon as I shed my outdoor gear to settle inside for the evening, Cyndie realized she needed her winter tires for a car appointment today. We store them on a shelf in the shop garage that gets accessed two times a year, so plenty of stuff ends up getting piled in the way.
Back outside I went. On the bright side, I was going to need to get the tires down anyway. I need to swap to winter wheels on the Grizzly and they are stored on that same shelf. Best of all, no additional problems turned up with my last two tasks so, no new added frustrations.
It feels good to have enough done that the impending snowfall brings with it no extra dread. The essentials have now all been handled.
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Don’t Fear
I watched a movie last night that scared me, contributing to some unsettling dreams. It depicted one possible scenario for rural life after the power grid collapses. It’s not the kind of thing I’m inclined to focus on, but it could happen.
In the middle of the night, awakened by a startling dream, my thoughts began to wander to another thing that could happen. Our worst fears could be realized.
It starts with outrageously unlikely things that seem as though they could never happen. Then they do happen and the world somehow accepts it, allowing it to become a new normal. The first example that comes to mind for me is, “Ed TV.”
When that movie showed up in 1999, I thought it was too bizarre to be believable. A camera crew follows a person everywhere? Yeah, right. It made no sense to me. Then the reality television genre experienced an explosion of global popularity. It happened. Outrageous became the norm.
In 1998, I watched the unlikely gubernatorial election upset in my home state of Minnesota when former actor and professional wrestler Jesse Ventura surprisingly beat the two major-party candidates. Most people figured it was too outrageous to happen, but then it did.
With the bizarre outcome of the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, the outrageous has happened again. One fear many people have is that discrimination and bullying will be allowed to fester as (a not so new) normal.
I was wondering why safety, happiness, peace, and love don’t end up being the norm that naturally blossoms. It’s not where people automatically go without energy to make it so. It’s not hard to do, but it takes intentional effort to avoid succumbing to the lowest common denominator.
Let’s not allow worst fears to be realized. Put effort into loving everyone. Do not go silently into normalizing discrimination. Sow intentional peace and love in all your endeavors. Fear not.
Every time we manifest loving-kindness we increase the total amount of love in the world. The bounds of love we can produce is limitless. Our souls are able to love even in the hardest of times. But we have to put forth effort to make it happen.
Love is more powerful than fear when we allow it to be so.
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Cold Blow
The prolonged warm spell this autumn has finally come to an abrupt end. We swung from warm sunshine to blowing snow in about a day, making it feel colder than it probably is. I had planned to avoid the expected precipitation by holing up in the shop and working to restore some order after days of dumping piles of tools and lumber used on the chicken coop construction project.
After a morning of some lightning, thunder, and hail, I stepped out to find a temporary reprieve. It was almost sunny for a moment. I decided to postpone the shop tidying and wander down toward the chicken coop to look into fixing the ramp we have in mind for the chicken door.
Cyndie had tried weaving some grape vines but bailed on that idea after discovering the vines she collected were not supple enough for her methods. I suggested we simply slide small branches over/under a center strut as an alternative.
After finding and attaching the integral strut, and testing my concept with 10 or 12 of whatever sticks and twigs I could find lying around, I switched modes to collect a bigger batch of raw materials for the weave. Conveniently, I had planned a new route through the trees between the coop and trail to the shop garage which needed to be cleared of saplings. These will be ideal for making the ramp.
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Those shots are dark because I can’t seem to finish anything around here before the sun sets anymore. By the time I finished clearing the trail and thought to snap an image, there was barely enough light left. A fact which also makes it difficult to discern the horizontal flying crystals of frozen rain that were happening at the time.
I found it surprisingly disorienting to have a new opening in our woods where one had not existed before. It was shocking to suddenly have the feeling of not knowing where I was for a second.
What doesn’t show in the path is the old rusty wood stove that I had just hauled away. It is a relic of days when they tapped the maple trees here and boiled off the sap for syrup. It wasn’t visible through all the greenery during the summer months, but for the last 5 years it has been very conspicuous during the fall and winter, looking like a sad neglected relic.
That’s one more thing taken care of that I’ve wanted to do since we got here, discarding scrap and making this place ever more our own.
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Disappearing Loaf
On Wednesday, Cyndie baked a couple loaves of bread and we cut into one of them right away at dinner. Yesterday morning, I received a text from Cyndie:
“Did you bring bread to work today or did Delilah eat a half loaf last night?”
I did not take any bread to work with me, so I guess…
Cyndie and George were going to have some toast for breakfast but she couldn’t find the loaf we had cut into. I can imagine her mental gymnastics of trying to figure out where it could be. Did we completely clear the table when we retired to the fireplace in the living room after the meal?
Looking innocent, “helping” Cyndie change the bed sheets.
Our dog has no history of taking anything off our kitchen counters, but anything lower than that might be a risk. If she took it from the table, there is a little bit of history there.
Early on in getting to know our new canine family member, Cyndie placed her coffee and toast on the table with her computer and stepped away to grab one more thing. She returned to find Delilah standing there with marmalade on her whiskers.
“Did you just take my toast?!”
Cyndie reported the look she received seemed to indicate Delilah assumed the toast was left there for her to take.
There were no crumbs of evidence detected anywhere yesterday morning. All I know for sure is that I didn’t take the half loaf of homemade bread.
Now I wish I had.
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I Wanted
I wanted to be a recording engineer. At least, I thought I did, back at the time of my life when I was feeling pressure to pursue an education beyond high school. With no strong drive toward any particular career and no interest in committing money to a general college program, I considered vocational training.
My passion was music, but it seemed like a 1-in-a-million long shot to become anything more than a “starving artist” if I started down that path. I landed a full-time job in a record store after high school and mulled over what kind of schooling might suit me best.
With little confidence or drive for the struggle toward making a living off performing or writing, I decided to look into the production side of the business. Brown Institute on Lake Street in Minneapolis was well-known for cranking out broadcasters and disc jockeys back then, and I discovered they also offered AA degrees in Electronic Technology that incorporated a multi-track Studio Recording elective.
Sounded good to me (regardless the fact that was a pun). I dove into the program, quickly discovering the basic electronic curriculum was easy for me to grasp. I had no idea. My impression of the guys who knew electronics was framed by images of NASA flight control engineers with white shirts, pockets of pens, and tape holding their eyeglasses together. I had zero practical experience with wires and transistors. This was unfamiliar territory for me.
Uncharacteristically, I arrived late on the very first day at Brown, interrupting the instructor to walk the length of the classroom with all eyes judging my late arrival and my “not-an-engineer” appearance. Much later, I enjoyed hearing the honest perspective of a significant number of classmates as they admitted to first impressions that I was likely a loser who wouldn’t last the year.
The math and electron physics turned out to be easy for me to grasp and I led the class in test scores. I’d found a good fit. After a year of basic electronics, we were able to choose from a variety of electives. I was there for only one, Studio Recording, and actually considered cutting the program short after I got what I wanted. It only took one presentation from the school to alter my thinking.
They laid out our options, boasting of the 3 potential job possibilities they knew about for local recording studios, and the hundred-or-so opportunities for general Electronic Technicians. On top of that, the starting salary possibilities for Technicians were eye-opening and beyond my expectations.
It changed the course of my future. I did learn to splice tape and clean heads, coil cables, run a huge multi-track sound board and produce a recording session. Massive fun, but like my songwriting and guitar performance, it would ultimately end up playing out as a hobby-level pastime.
I thought I wanted to be a recording engineer, but my pragmatic tendency to choose a course with safer probabilities has paid me back handsomely. Happily, my eventual career path through industrial electronics manufacturing didn’t end up diminishing my love for music one bit.
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